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Agriculture and the development process: a study of Punjab
Journal of Rural Studres, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 163-173 Pergamon Journals Ltd.. 1986, Printed in Great Britain
Book Reviews believed to fulfill. The message is therefore romantic in the truest sense of the word. Yet it is also a radical message: a plea for the re-thinking of our relationships with land, nature and each other. This is the guiding philosophy of Common Ground (the organization behind this publication), and of much of the ‘new wave’ of countryside writing of which editor Richard Mabey is a key figure.
Second Nature. R. Mabey (ed.) (with S. Clifford and A. King for Common Ground), 233 pp., 1984, Jonathan Cape, London, f12.50
One of the most persistent myths of industrial culture is that the countryside and all that it symbolizes for our relationships with nature, landscape and place is our natural habitat. It is, indeed, second nature. And, from the title on, this book is a reinvocation of this myth; an attempt. in the words of its editor, ‘to bring the argument about countryside in a very literal sense back home to the local landscapes . . and the variety of personal meanings which they hold for us’.
However, with the exception of the more critical contributions, such as those of Weldon and Barrell, it is a celebration of landscape and nature. As such it presents a beguiling view of countryside, for it sees it as a panacea for the ills of the urban-industrial machine. It is this perception which so strongly influences the public attitude to countryside planning in Britain, and so often ignores the essential connections between country and city. This does not make the book any less enjoyable and stimulating to read, but it does raise important questions about its contribution to the future of the countryside.
The result is an anthology of essays and artistic works from contributors of widely different backgrounds and interests. The essays range from the existential to the abstract, although all are explicitly personal treatments of the general theme. Taken as a whole, they cover a range of impressions, experiences, emotions and ideas which are reflective of the symbolic and emotional significance of countryside and nature. All make for interesting reading yet several are worthy of special mention.
MICHAEL BUNCE University of Toronto Scarborough College Canada
Norman Nicholson’s description of his identity with his own Cumbrian landscape conveys the sense of belonging to a place. Ronald Blythe revives the notion of landscape and scenery as a cure. Fay Weldon puts the sentimentality about country living into materialistic perspective. Kim Taplin examines the links between pacifism and reverence for the land. David Pownall prophesies a new transcendentalism as the salvation of civilization. John Barrel reappraises the influence of nostalgic images of a golden rural past on our current attitudes to country life. And Raymond Williams, ten years on from The Country and the City, takes a refreshing look at a countryside revitalized by alternative lifestyles and activities.
Agriculture and the Development Process: a Study of Punjab, D.P. Chaudhri and A.K. Dasgupta, 216 pp., Croom Helm, London, f19.95
The subtitle of this book gives a better indication of its contents than the more sweeping title on the dust jacket. It is a book entirely concerned with the Indian Punjab, and it is written for (and by) economists.
I find it more difficult to comment on the artistic contributions for they involve an extraordinary range of images and methods, in which the relevance to the central theme is, in some instances, decidedly tenuous. They are not intended to illustrate the essays, but rather the artistic use of natural materials found in the countryside, the portrayal of wildlife and the visual interpretation of landscapes. Their main contribution is to set the reflective pace and tone of the book.
The first chapter gives a brief historical introduction to the Punjab and its agriculture prior to 1946. The second examines the growth in agricultural output which occurred after independence, comparing rates of growth in the 1950s and 1860s and questioning whether the Green Revolution has ‘fizzled out’. This is a long chapter (34 pages), and presents useful work defining indices of agricultural output from 1950-1979. These show that growth in output was substantial (some 2 to 3 times the average for India as a whole) and sustained. The contribution to this growth of land, labour and capital are considered in turn, time-series data or figures at intervals being given for each. The shift in factor proportions through time is discussed.
Perhaps the most perceptive contribution of all, however, comes from Fraser Harrison, who captures in his essay the essentially reverential philosophy of the book. Our nostalgia for the countryside is not, in Harrison’s view. only sentimental but is also an emotion which fulfills a genuine need for an idealized reconstruction of our relationships with nature. In local, personalized countryside, we seek the ‘mergence of self with non-self’, ‘the elevation of body and soul’. And this is what Second Nature is all about the sublime relationship with nature and landscape which the countryside, and above all the English countryside. is
Chapter 3 analyses the role of infrastructure in the economic development of Punjab, particularly the development of irrigation from 1860 onwards: between 1860 and 1947 Punjab took between 24 and 47% of all Indian investment in irrigation, although less than a third of the irrigated area of the Punjab came to India on partition. 163
164
Book Reviews
After partition, the Punjab’s share of India’s irrigated area rose from 17.1% (19.50-51) to 29.9% (1973-76). The development of rural electrification (which allowed electric tubewells). rural credit and marketing institutions, agricultural research. transport and education are also described.
analysis does not reach forwards to suggest in any detail what may happen in the Punjab in the future, nor what form policy should take. If this is siiccess, is it sustainable. is it universally desirable. is it really replicable? This reviewer is left uneasy because these are not the kind of questions answered by this book.
In Chapter 4 demographic data are presented, and links between economic growth and demographic change are discussed. Population growth accelerated sharply in the 1950s as mortality rates declined. The decline in mortality rates stopped in the 197Os, and the authors discuss the need for policies to improve health and living conditions. and to accelerate fertility decfine. Chapter 5 discusses the efficiency of marketing in Punjab. in terms of agricultural produce, labour and capital markets. Chapter 6 covers income distribution and poverty. Here the authors argue. on the basis of data on household consumption, that inequality and poverty have been reduced, at least since the mid-1960s. They therefore say that the argument that the Green Revolution makes no ‘dent’ in rural poverty is mistaken, although they admit that agricultural growth alone cannot be relied on as ‘an automatic cure for rural poverty’: their ‘poverty ratio’ remained high through the 1950s despite agricultural growth, and only fell in the late 1960s. A hard core of poverty still persists.
Agriculture and the Development
In Chapter 7 the authors try to look beyond simple timeseries analysis at the developing economic structure in Punjab. They consider in some detail the evidence for differentiation of the peasantry (finding marked variations in basic land and capital assets held), and also examine the sectoral composition of output and workforce (agriculture’s share declining), and the structure of the manufacturing sector. The final chapter takes the title of the whole book, and looks at the contribution of agricultural growth to the whole development process in Punjab. This includes a comparison between the growth of agriculture in Punjab since 1950 with that in Japan in the years 1880-1935, and a note on the Punjab experience in the context of India as a whole. These are too brief to be very effective, and the latter does little more than present two tables of comparative data on agricultural growth in all Indian states. Lastly the authors glance into the future. In Punjab, great reliance has been placed on increasing food supply through greater production and greater efficiency. The authors argue that the intensification and extension of agriculture are now approaching a ceiling, and the development of industry and off-farm employment is necessary. They believe that Punjab has the skills and resources necessary for rapid economic development, and warn against trying to slow modernisation. They call for ‘a firm, well thought out and visible effort towards a more diversified economic structure which alone could sustain the long-term process of modern economic development in Punjab’. It is a pity that after all their detailed analysis they offer no more than this general exhortation. The best feature of this book is the detailed work on economic indices. and the collation of diverse and impenetrable statistical sources. The limitations of the data are fully and informatively discussed, and each chapter starts with a short theoretical outline. However, the story the authors tell is rather arid and remote. They have described an unusual success story. yet give little feel for the real world beyond aggregate statistics: there is no sense of who was doing what to whom, nor of why. Their
Process -is quite short (216 pages, 4 of them appendices and bibliography) and is poorly presented. It has been reproduced from typewritten copy (with unjustified margins) rather th?” typeset. The only map, of the physiography of Punjab, is untidy and has handwritten lettering. Considering its appearance. the book IS expensive at f19.50. Unless purchasers spot the all-important sub-title they may be disappointed by its limited geographical scope.
WILLIAM
ADAMS
Department of Geography Cambridge, U.K.
Development and the Landowner: an Analysis of the British Experience, R. Goodchild and R. Munton, 210 pp.,
1985. Allen & Unwin, London, f20.00
This book is concerned with the role of the landowner in the development process, a topic which has received all too scant a coverage from researchers to date. It is especially welcome in its attempt to flesh out the skeleton of existing descriptive models of the development process with reference to detailed empirical research of landownership. The fact that the two authors are among a small band of active researchers in this field is not the least attraction of this timely and useful text. The framework around which the book is constructed is clear and interesting. Drawing a basic distinction between the developer and the landowner, the authors review the existing literature and devise a descriptive framework influencing landowner behaviour categorised in terms of contextual factors, site characteristics and landowner characteristics. These interlinked beha~oural constraints are seen to result in a decision model comprising financial, operational and management decisions which confront all owners of development land, and which the authors deploy to create a profit-maximising investment strategy for the owner of either a green field or a re-development site. Aspects of this investment strategy are then examined in relation to three case studies. Detailed attention is given particularly to the contextual constraints on landowner behaviour. The four factors identified are grouped into two categories. The first (comprising pfanning policy, taxation policy and compulsory purchase policy) is seen as government imposed, the second (the operation of the land market) as ‘merely influenced’ (p. 15) by government. As regards the review of government-imposed constraints, readers will no doubt welcome one of the most comprehensive, concise and readable accounts currently available, especially useful for its interweaving of land-use planning with land policy. With an emphasis upon the continuing changing context of both planning and land policies, and upon the implementation and impact of these policies, this account is likely to prove one of the most accessible for general student use.
Book Reviews believed to fulfill. The message is therefore romantic in the truest sense of the word. Yet it is also a radical message: a plea for the re-thinking of our relationships with land, nature and each other. This is the guiding philosophy of Common Ground (the organization behind this publication), and of much of the ‘new wave’ of countryside writing of which editor Richard Mabey is a key figure.
Second Nature. R. Mabey (ed.) (with S. Clifford and A. King for Common Ground), 233 pp., 1984, Jonathan Cape, London, f12.50
One of the most persistent myths of industrial culture is that the countryside and all that it symbolizes for our relationships with nature, landscape and place is our natural habitat. It is, indeed, second nature. And, from the title on, this book is a reinvocation of this myth; an attempt. in the words of its editor, ‘to bring the argument about countryside in a very literal sense back home to the local landscapes . . and the variety of personal meanings which they hold for us’.
However, with the exception of the more critical contributions, such as those of Weldon and Barrell, it is a celebration of landscape and nature. As such it presents a beguiling view of countryside, for it sees it as a panacea for the ills of the urban-industrial machine. It is this perception which so strongly influences the public attitude to countryside planning in Britain, and so often ignores the essential connections between country and city. This does not make the book any less enjoyable and stimulating to read, but it does raise important questions about its contribution to the future of the countryside.
The result is an anthology of essays and artistic works from contributors of widely different backgrounds and interests. The essays range from the existential to the abstract, although all are explicitly personal treatments of the general theme. Taken as a whole, they cover a range of impressions, experiences, emotions and ideas which are reflective of the symbolic and emotional significance of countryside and nature. All make for interesting reading yet several are worthy of special mention.
MICHAEL BUNCE University of Toronto Scarborough College Canada
Norman Nicholson’s description of his identity with his own Cumbrian landscape conveys the sense of belonging to a place. Ronald Blythe revives the notion of landscape and scenery as a cure. Fay Weldon puts the sentimentality about country living into materialistic perspective. Kim Taplin examines the links between pacifism and reverence for the land. David Pownall prophesies a new transcendentalism as the salvation of civilization. John Barrel reappraises the influence of nostalgic images of a golden rural past on our current attitudes to country life. And Raymond Williams, ten years on from The Country and the City, takes a refreshing look at a countryside revitalized by alternative lifestyles and activities.
Agriculture and the Development Process: a Study of Punjab, D.P. Chaudhri and A.K. Dasgupta, 216 pp., Croom Helm, London, f19.95
The subtitle of this book gives a better indication of its contents than the more sweeping title on the dust jacket. It is a book entirely concerned with the Indian Punjab, and it is written for (and by) economists.
I find it more difficult to comment on the artistic contributions for they involve an extraordinary range of images and methods, in which the relevance to the central theme is, in some instances, decidedly tenuous. They are not intended to illustrate the essays, but rather the artistic use of natural materials found in the countryside, the portrayal of wildlife and the visual interpretation of landscapes. Their main contribution is to set the reflective pace and tone of the book.
The first chapter gives a brief historical introduction to the Punjab and its agriculture prior to 1946. The second examines the growth in agricultural output which occurred after independence, comparing rates of growth in the 1950s and 1860s and questioning whether the Green Revolution has ‘fizzled out’. This is a long chapter (34 pages), and presents useful work defining indices of agricultural output from 1950-1979. These show that growth in output was substantial (some 2 to 3 times the average for India as a whole) and sustained. The contribution to this growth of land, labour and capital are considered in turn, time-series data or figures at intervals being given for each. The shift in factor proportions through time is discussed.
Perhaps the most perceptive contribution of all, however, comes from Fraser Harrison, who captures in his essay the essentially reverential philosophy of the book. Our nostalgia for the countryside is not, in Harrison’s view. only sentimental but is also an emotion which fulfills a genuine need for an idealized reconstruction of our relationships with nature. In local, personalized countryside, we seek the ‘mergence of self with non-self’, ‘the elevation of body and soul’. And this is what Second Nature is all about the sublime relationship with nature and landscape which the countryside, and above all the English countryside. is
Chapter 3 analyses the role of infrastructure in the economic development of Punjab, particularly the development of irrigation from 1860 onwards: between 1860 and 1947 Punjab took between 24 and 47% of all Indian investment in irrigation, although less than a third of the irrigated area of the Punjab came to India on partition. 163
164
Book Reviews
After partition, the Punjab’s share of India’s irrigated area rose from 17.1% (19.50-51) to 29.9% (1973-76). The development of rural electrification (which allowed electric tubewells). rural credit and marketing institutions, agricultural research. transport and education are also described.
analysis does not reach forwards to suggest in any detail what may happen in the Punjab in the future, nor what form policy should take. If this is siiccess, is it sustainable. is it universally desirable. is it really replicable? This reviewer is left uneasy because these are not the kind of questions answered by this book.
In Chapter 4 demographic data are presented, and links between economic growth and demographic change are discussed. Population growth accelerated sharply in the 1950s as mortality rates declined. The decline in mortality rates stopped in the 197Os, and the authors discuss the need for policies to improve health and living conditions. and to accelerate fertility decfine. Chapter 5 discusses the efficiency of marketing in Punjab. in terms of agricultural produce, labour and capital markets. Chapter 6 covers income distribution and poverty. Here the authors argue. on the basis of data on household consumption, that inequality and poverty have been reduced, at least since the mid-1960s. They therefore say that the argument that the Green Revolution makes no ‘dent’ in rural poverty is mistaken, although they admit that agricultural growth alone cannot be relied on as ‘an automatic cure for rural poverty’: their ‘poverty ratio’ remained high through the 1950s despite agricultural growth, and only fell in the late 1960s. A hard core of poverty still persists.
Agriculture and the Development
In Chapter 7 the authors try to look beyond simple timeseries analysis at the developing economic structure in Punjab. They consider in some detail the evidence for differentiation of the peasantry (finding marked variations in basic land and capital assets held), and also examine the sectoral composition of output and workforce (agriculture’s share declining), and the structure of the manufacturing sector. The final chapter takes the title of the whole book, and looks at the contribution of agricultural growth to the whole development process in Punjab. This includes a comparison between the growth of agriculture in Punjab since 1950 with that in Japan in the years 1880-1935, and a note on the Punjab experience in the context of India as a whole. These are too brief to be very effective, and the latter does little more than present two tables of comparative data on agricultural growth in all Indian states. Lastly the authors glance into the future. In Punjab, great reliance has been placed on increasing food supply through greater production and greater efficiency. The authors argue that the intensification and extension of agriculture are now approaching a ceiling, and the development of industry and off-farm employment is necessary. They believe that Punjab has the skills and resources necessary for rapid economic development, and warn against trying to slow modernisation. They call for ‘a firm, well thought out and visible effort towards a more diversified economic structure which alone could sustain the long-term process of modern economic development in Punjab’. It is a pity that after all their detailed analysis they offer no more than this general exhortation. The best feature of this book is the detailed work on economic indices. and the collation of diverse and impenetrable statistical sources. The limitations of the data are fully and informatively discussed, and each chapter starts with a short theoretical outline. However, the story the authors tell is rather arid and remote. They have described an unusual success story. yet give little feel for the real world beyond aggregate statistics: there is no sense of who was doing what to whom, nor of why. Their
Process -is quite short (216 pages, 4 of them appendices and bibliography) and is poorly presented. It has been reproduced from typewritten copy (with unjustified margins) rather th?” typeset. The only map, of the physiography of Punjab, is untidy and has handwritten lettering. Considering its appearance. the book IS expensive at f19.50. Unless purchasers spot the all-important sub-title they may be disappointed by its limited geographical scope.
WILLIAM
ADAMS
Department of Geography Cambridge, U.K.
Development and the Landowner: an Analysis of the British Experience, R. Goodchild and R. Munton, 210 pp.,
1985. Allen & Unwin, London, f20.00
This book is concerned with the role of the landowner in the development process, a topic which has received all too scant a coverage from researchers to date. It is especially welcome in its attempt to flesh out the skeleton of existing descriptive models of the development process with reference to detailed empirical research of landownership. The fact that the two authors are among a small band of active researchers in this field is not the least attraction of this timely and useful text. The framework around which the book is constructed is clear and interesting. Drawing a basic distinction between the developer and the landowner, the authors review the existing literature and devise a descriptive framework influencing landowner behaviour categorised in terms of contextual factors, site characteristics and landowner characteristics. These interlinked beha~oural constraints are seen to result in a decision model comprising financial, operational and management decisions which confront all owners of development land, and which the authors deploy to create a profit-maximising investment strategy for the owner of either a green field or a re-development site. Aspects of this investment strategy are then examined in relation to three case studies. Detailed attention is given particularly to the contextual constraints on landowner behaviour. The four factors identified are grouped into two categories. The first (comprising pfanning policy, taxation policy and compulsory purchase policy) is seen as government imposed, the second (the operation of the land market) as ‘merely influenced’ (p. 15) by government. As regards the review of government-imposed constraints, readers will no doubt welcome one of the most comprehensive, concise and readable accounts currently available, especially useful for its interweaving of land-use planning with land policy. With an emphasis upon the continuing changing context of both planning and land policies, and upon the implementation and impact of these policies, this account is likely to prove one of the most accessible for general student use.